Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18, RSV)

but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. (1 Corinthians 1:23, RSV)

Before heading in to Jesus’s descent into hell and being accused of outright heresy, let me establish a framework of sorts with regard to Paul’s cross. 1 Corinthians 1:18 may be thought of as the foundation for most conservative theology today. Sunday after Sunday, in churches all around the country, preachers constantly tell their congregations to “come to the cross” or about the “power of the cross.” (See, e.g., Adrian Warnock’s blog). If you say to them, “Hey, wait a minute, the cross isn’t the whole story,” you’re immediately castigated as a heretical blasphemer who is worthy of a place in line at Salem.

While Paul does speak of the cross and the preaching of Jesus crucified, he is using that as shorthand for the entire Plan of Redemption, including the resurrection and glorification of Jesus at the Father’s right hand. How do we know that? At the end of 1 Corinthians, the very same letter of these cross verses, Paul writes:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised; and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is in vain; ye are yet in your sins. (1 Cor. 15: 13, 14, 17, RSV)

By Paul’s (read: “God’s”) own statement, if the Plan of Redemption stopped at the cross we all would still be dead in our sins. If we look carefully at Scripture, we can see this played out time and time again. For instance, Peter’s first sermon (the very first church sermon):

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know - this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. (Acts 2:22-24, RSV)

As you can see, Peter refers to Jesus’s crucifixion, but he doesn’t miss a beat in heading right into the resurrection. Paul does the very same thing in Acts 13:26-39. Indeed, in both sermons the resurrection appears more central to the message than the crucifixion. And this leads us to John 19:30. That is the verse where we see Jesus hanging on the cross and he shouts out, “It is finished!” Modern preachers and theologians have eviserated 1 Corinthians 15:13,14, 17 with their constructions of what Jesus meant:

The word means ‘to complete,’ ‘to bring to perfection.’ Jesus had fully done the work God the Father sent him to do. (William Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek at 224)

The large-scale outworking of this can be seen in John’s deliberate sequence of ‘signs.’ Though this is controversial, I believe that John intends his readers to follow a sequence of seven signs, with the water-into-wine story at Cana as the first and the crucifixion the seventh. On the cross Jesus finishes the work the father has given him to do (17.4), ending with the shout of triumph (tetelestai, ‘it is accomplished,’ 19.30), corresponding to the completion of creation itself. (N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God at 440)

When Jesus said, ‘It is finished,’ He meant it. He meant that there could be
nothing added to what He had done. The same thing is true of salvation. Jesus finished it on the cross. All you have to do is have faith in His finished work. You can’t add anything to it. (John MacArthur, Crucifixion and Resurrection, Tape GC 1575)

And when the moment of his death was near, Jesus cried out, ‘It is finished,’ and bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:30). By this he meant more than ‘my life is over.’ He meant, ‘I have fully accomplished the redeeming work my Father sent me to do.’ (John Piper, The Unparalleled Passion of Jesus Christ, January 1, 1995)

In John 19:30 Jesus said, ‘It is finished!’ He did not say, ‘It has just begun!’ The Greek word used in the original text is tetelestai, which means ‘It is paid; the debt has been paid in full.’ The finality of Jesus’ accomplishment upon the cross is made crystal clear by the tearing of the temple curtain that veiled God’s earthly sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, from man, thus signifying that access to God had been restored at that precise moment.” (Mark 15:38; cf. Hebrews 9:1-14; 10:19-22). Hank Hanegraaff, Christianity in Crisis at 162.

None of these men, save Hanegraaff, present one iota of scriptural evidentiary support for Jesus’s intended meaning that his own mission was completed. Hanegrraff’s scriptural support falls apart when you consider that the disciples were absolutely flummoxed by Jesus’s death and not a single person was born again at Hanegraaff’s “precise moment.” That construction not only eviserates 1 Corinthians 15:13-17, but also renders a whole lot of scripture, especially large portions of Hebrews, undeciferable.

So what did Jesus mean when he said, “It is finished?” When he came to earth, he came as a man who was born under the Law:

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law. (Galatians 4:3, RSV)

During his life, he fulfilled the Law:

For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. (Matthew 5:18, RSV)

When he said, “It is finished,” he was speaking of the Law and its Levitical priesthood. (That is shown by the tearing of the veil.) In the resurrection, he was going to assume the role of our High Priest so the Law had to end:

Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. (Hebrews 7:11-12, RSV)

I have said all of that to show that Jesus’s mission in the Plan of Redemption was not finished on the cross. His resurrection was absolutely necessary for our redemption for he was required to present his blood before the Father on the third day:

he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:12, RSV)

You can see that this is perfectly consistent with Paul’s statement that if Jesus was not resurrected then we’d still be in our sins. So Jesus’s mission could not have been finished when he physically died and his mission included the three day period between his death on the cross and his resurrection.

While this “introduction” is somewhat abbreviated (I’m in a hurry this morning), it gives us the right foundation to explore those three days. So, on to hell it is.

[Note: The first “hell” essay will be on Peter’s sermon and I’ll probably post it on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. This will be an extensive series so I have created its own tag. Let me also add that this series will give you a greater appreciation for Jesus than you’ve ever had. I guarantee it.]